Look, I know I do nothing around here........but fix the damned forum already!

For some reason I usually get that image of our closely related animal, the pig, when I think of EA. Time and time again they ingeniously (or maybe not with their demographic once you think about it), release a game that seems to be more unstable than my lower bowel tract. And when I say pigs, I don't mean those nice ones like babe, or the Charlotte's web pig (what's his name, Oscar Meier?), I think of those scary ones in tuxes that you horridly dream about when American McGee and Armani play tag team in your head and screw up your sleep cycle for the next week.

“Hence the term, greedy as a pig.”

Recently the Battlefield 2142 demo has been released and I am constantly reminded of how much I hate EA and Dice when I see their logos splashed across my screen. Every thirty seconds of gametime crashes me to the desktop. “Buy game now!” pops up in random places during the loading of the game, tempting me to put down a credit card number so I can soon experienc- shit, demo crashed again.

I'm certainly not going to hold these guys responsible for this shitty flake of a mod. That's the job that you as consumers must do. I myself might eventually buy it, because I missed out on all the “fun” of the second installment. I might actually pull my dusty programming knowledge off the shelf and code something that actually feels “futuristic” to the extent that other games masterfully interpreted it.

Around the world and back and you're still landing in that stewpot called the midwest? This best be a visit or the Shame-Torch will be forever fueled by your tears.

I'll have you know that Key West, when compared to Iowa during the summer, shares the same humidity and is only a few degrees warmer on average. (It is a lot sunnier, though!)

I'll take my many sailing trips, etc, in the Gulf/Atlantic over a jaunt to Las Vegas and a Gaynimefest visit in Iowa anyday!

Like we care about you and your Key Lime pies. Unlike you I have traveled half the globe to come back to Iowa, and THEN bounce to Las Vegas. Key what? Humid and hot as hell what?

Beaner and I were lucky, or rather, unlucky enough to visit Anime Iowa this year. You know us TB boys roll deep, we gotta represent! The convention itself wasn't what I'd call a success in terms of, well there's really no term to describe the chaos and frustration that they caused the participants and I'm sure each other during the three days that they had at the hotel. I'm going to call it "Frustraos".

The viewing rooms were not on time, broken, and often lost, which still baffles me because I can't imagine how difficult it would be to keep track of files or movies, and that each one has a predetermined length of time so creating a schedule to adhere to shouldn't be the task that was witnessed by us.

The dealers room and the art gallery were blended together with a hint of nutmeg to allow the artists to actually get people to their booths in hopes of promoting their work, which was a nice touch. However, half of the hotel's elevators were out of service meant that participating in different events offered during the duration of the show required you to take the stairs. They were even nice enough to put scheduled events on the top floor.

If I was an objective person, I would probably give the convention a D+ over a D- because of all the hard work that the volunteers did to make the show manageable.

For all those stuck in a dreary place (Iowa):

I will be in Key West in less than 24 hours.

Alright, the new strip is finally up! I can't believe how long it was shelved for want of an inking pen. Bah! At least I had the Han Solo trilogy and Tattooine Ghose to read while I was stuck. The Art Store has horrible hours.

The whole Mac vs. PC thing is starting to be a touchy subject for me. I have a lot of PC roots, but being an aspiring Graphic Artists I've been subjected to a lot of Macintosh dogma. For a loooong time, Macs where just woefully underpowered of overpriced. The Mac Zealots were so busy thinking that they were in some sort of elite club that they found was to ignore benchmarks and create their own fiction-based sound bites to keep them in their fantasy land. People who have been designing for a while are the worst. I remember going to website after website, showing one of my teachers benchmarks proving how poorly Macs faired in comparison to PCs. Ever seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail? He was like the Black Knight, unable to acknowledge that his arguments were nothing more than a bleeding torso on the ground.

Now here's where my dilema comes in. Every aspect of Apple products are really well DESIGNED. The product design, packaging, print and tv ads...they're all REALLY good. They picked their target audience, found how to manipulate them, and came up with a sylish and creative way to do it. And now that the hardware is finally improving, they're just overpriced. I have to respect that. I YEARN to create good designs that would allow clients to overcharge for their merchandise! But when they basically state that Macs are better because they have more fun applications and PCs can only make black and white spreadsheets, it gets my goat. Ugh, I could disect each one of these new commercials and point out the gaping holes in their claims, but no one wants to hear that.